“As you know, in most areas of science, there are long periods of beginning before we really make progress.” – Eric Kandel

In a typical maze experiment, a hungry rat enters a moderately complicated maze, in which it does its best to find a “reward room” with food. After some guesses, the rat finds its way, consumes the food, and is returned to the entrance of the maze. From then on, the rat makes fewer bad guesses and finds the food faster after each round. Eventually, it completely masters the maze layout and finds the perfect route every time. To explain this improvement, scientists have coined the term reward reinforcement, which essentially suggests that the reward that the rat collects at the end reinforces its correct choices, until it eventually learns a perfect route. This model may sound very simple, but is it?

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